Jean-Paul Riopelle at the Galerie Lounge TD

November 17, 2011 – More than 50 works by one of Canada’s most internationally renowned artists, Jean‑Paul Riopelle (1923-2002), are on display at the Galerie Lounge TD, Maison du Festival Rio Tinto Alcan, until December 24, 2011. The exhibition, Jean-Paul Riopelle : D’aile en ailes l’élan vital, includes 27 prints, 3 sculptures in bronze, photos of the artist, items from his daily painting routine, and previously unseen works on paper.

An innovator Born in Montréal, the painter, sculptor, and engraver was a member of the Automatistes in the 1940s and exhibited with them in 1946 and 1947. In 1947, while in Paris (where he would settle the following year), he was the only Canadian to exhibit with the Surrealists. An independent trailblazer, Riopelle continually reinvented his pictorial lanugage by exploring new techniques and materials with inspiration coming, more often than not, from the mysterious qualities of nature. Jazz As Riopelle’s career emerged on the international scene, the relatively new form of music, jazz, continued to permeate global culture. Riopelle is known to have rubbed elbows with the greatest jazz legends of the era, including Bud Powell. Riopelle’s interest in jazz incited him to let the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal reproduce silkscreens of his piece, Jazz, in 1997.

Back to Canada Riopelle returned to Québec in 1972 and built a studio in Sainte-Marguerite-du-Lac-Masson in the Laurentian Mountains outside of Montréal. He lived out his final years at Île-aux-Grues, upriver from Québec.

Riopelle’s work is featured in major museums, galleries, and private and public collections all over the world. Admission to Jean-Paul Riopelle : D’aile en ailes l’élan vital is free.